ABSTRACT
Technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning (ML), deep learning (DL), cognitive computing and big data analytics, are making significant changes in the way the urban lifestyle is slowly but steadily changing. In this technology-enabled era, the adoption of the smart city projects has been done globally to make the lives of residents convenient. This is being achieved by bringing in significant levels of automation from simple to even more complex processes in the city's functioning. The concept of “smart” means an automated mechanism has been adopted to perform the desired activity within a given functionality or system. The main components of a smart city include smart infrastructure, smart governance, smart policies, smart transportation, smart healthcare, smart agriculture, smart education, smart economy, smart environment, smart industry, smart energy and even smart feedback mechanisms. The critical question to answer is to understand whether “smart” is also “inclusive”. In this study, the focus would be to assess the impact of the AI-enabled smart city era on children with one of the most difficult special needs prognoses, children on the autism spectrum disorder (ASD). ASD is a neurodevelopmental syndrome, with primary deficits in social reciprocity and communication and restricted, repetitive behaviours. A child's disability or disorder is a three-way experience, including the child with the disability, the parents and the external environment. Therefore, this chapter adopts the quality function deployment approach to study the “Voice of Customer” (VoC). The parent's perspective gives an understanding of the “what's”, which are the needs of the child and the “how's”, which represent the features of the smart city that will fulfil these “what's”.
